Choreographer and artistic director of the ballet Mário Radačovský prepared a ballet about a woman who turned the world of fashion upside down by changing the wardrobe of a modern woman. In May 2024, the NdB Ballet presented a new ballet production about the world-famous fashion icon Gabrielle or Coco Chanel. She was a visionary, a predatory businesswoman, a woman both beloved and very lonely. Coco Chanel‘s personal life was as compelling as her career. Her affairs with the most important men of her time, as well as her friendships with artists and intellectuals, show a woman who was as independent in her personal life as she was in her professional career.
But the production does not aim to retell the entire life of Coco Chanel. The choreographer chose certain moments from her life and based the concept on the fashion show as an important component of the fashion world. „I was looking for a key not to drown in Coco Chanel‘s life. I deliberately left out a lot of situations and turns of life. The essence of her life, and indeed the life of any fashion designer, is, in my opinion, the show. The fashion show, the show of life. Against the backdrop of the preparations for the fashion show, flashbacks from the heroine‘s life appear retrospectively, which always evoke a specific memory for a moment,“ adds Mário Radačovský, artistic director of the NdB Ballet and choreographer of the production.
Naturally, a great emphasis is placed on the artistic aspect of this ballet. The costumes in the performance underline the typical features of Coco Chanel‘s handwriting – the boldness with which she worked in breaking down unnecessary decorativeness, or the use of masculine elements in women‘s fashion and vice versa. The Slovak costume designer Ľudmila Várossová handled the challenging task with bravura.
Duration: 2hours and 20 minutes (2 intermissions)